Roadside sewage plagues residents

A putrid odour hung heavy in the air near Fort Burt early this week, but the experience was nothing new for businesspeople working in the area.

For more than seven years, they said, sewage has periodically backed up and bubbled out of a manhole cover at the intersection of Fishers Lane and Sir Francis Drake Highway after heavy rains.

“All I know is it’s appalling. It’s the first thing our charter guests see when they drive into TMM [Yacht Charters],” said Barney Crook, the owner of the company. “It’s the first thing they smell. It’s right by Rite Way, [which is] a health hazard. What more do you say?”

Communications and Works Minister Kye Rymer visited the site Monday with personnel from the Water and Sewage Department, and he told the Beacon the next day that work was under way to address the issue.

The main cause of the problem, Mr. Rymer explained, is an undersized well that can’t always handle the volume of sewage directed to it.

“After the excessive rains, it then causes a blockage in the system,” Mr. Rymer said. “Every time there’s a blockage with the pump, the guys have to go into the station and lift out the pump, clear it from debris, and then it starts working again.”

According to the minister, neither that pump nor the larger sewage system in the area can handle heavy precipitation.

“The issue is that the well there is overwhelmed,” Mr. Rymer said. “It’s too small for the capacity or the flow that is coming to it.”

However, he added that a plan was being developed to expand the sewer system.

“The plan is to increase the capacity [and] make sure that the well can accommodate the number of effluents that will be going to it,” the minister said.

He added that the problem should have been addressed by Tuesday.

Sceptical

But not everyone was convinced.

Mr. Crook said he was pleased to see a work crew from the Water and Sewerage Department in the area this week, but after years of unfulfilled promises from government, he was sceptical.

“Am I grateful they’re doing something again? Yes,” Mr. Crook said. “But it’ll be another patch, just like everything else.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Crook accompanied the Beacon from his business to the manhole cover, where brown water was bubbling up into the road.

The noxious odour permeating the air was not unusual, he said.

Despite having been assured by government that a change was imminent, Mr. Crook said he hadn’t seen evidence of any lasting fixes.

“In 2021, the then-permanent secretary assured us that they were looking at a long-term [sewerage] solution and that they were going to do it in the next fiscal year,” he said. “You need the pumping station above ground, and they’ve never done it. And so it just continues.”

The “long-term” solution taken instead took the form of an overflow drain from the sewer into the water at Road Reef Marina, according to Mr. Crook.

“It used to flood this whole area, which was foul. And then they found a solution: They just built a drain, and the drain takes it straight in the marina,” he said.

Lorna Smith

Opposition member Lorna Smith echoed the call for an immediate fix, noting that the problem has been plaguing businesses in the area for the better part of a decade.

“It is unacceptable for us to have raw sewage bubbling in the middle of the road next to TMM, which is one of our leading charter boat [companies],” Ms. Smith told the Beacon. “And then on the other side, you have one of our leading supermarkets.”

Ms. Smith, an at-large representative who served as deputy premier until Premier Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley ousted her in favour of then-opposition member Julian Fraser in October, also visited the Fort Burt area Monday.

She told the Beacon the next day that the health risk near businesses such as doctors’ offices and law firms reflects badly on the territory.

“It speaks very poorly about the community and the level of care that we are giving to essential services,” Ms. Smith said.

Dust storm

Another area business owner shared similar concerns. Fine foods importer Nigel Keegan, who owns Gourmet Foods BVI, told the Beacon he fears that the health risks don’t end with storm season.

“[The sewage] dries and then it ends up in a dust cloud, which is a health hazard in itself,” he said. “That brings in other diseases to people and stuff like that, which normally happens after major floods.”

Mr. Keegan, like Mr. Crook, noticed the drain installation as well.

“The only fix that they’ve done is to divert [sewage] into the ocean instead of flooding the road and the car park,” he said. “We’ve had multiple promises over the years that it’s going to be fixed, and it just never gets done.”

A better way

Ms. Smith saw the Water and Sewerage Department working on the pump during her visit to Road Reef on Monday, but she called for a comprehensive solution to fix the problem once and for all.

“It seems to me that we need a proper diagnosis of the issue,” Ms. Smith said Tuesday. “If we need to bring in somebody to fix the problem — I don’t know that we do — but if that is required, we need to fix it. We cannot be having raw sewage flowing into the street and into the water.”

The recent sewerage “fix” Mr. Crook noted from 2021 did not impress Ms. Smith, who called the drainage pipe into Road Reef Marina “unacceptable.”

“When I went to visit [Monday], I not only observed the sewage: I smelled it going into the water,” Ms. Smith said. “It’s totally unacceptable from an environmental point of view.”

Worse vacations

Down the road from TMM Yacht Charters, Conch Charters has been similarly affected, according to Louisa Gundry, the company’s head of housekeeping.

“It’s not ideal. We are coming up to a really busy Christmas period,” Ms. Gundry said. “It wasn’t so bad at the beginning of the season because we didn’t have many boats going out, but now we’re super busy.”

Of the two shower facilities Conch Charters offers to customers, one backs up and floods the stall with blackwater after heavy rains, Ms. Gundry said.

“We can have up to about 40 or 50 customers on the dock, and we’ve only got those two showers, which would get used quite a lot,” she said. “But we’ve had to have them closed. So we’re getting a lot of complaints from customers.”

‘They didn’t reply’

Conch has reached out to the Water and Sewerage Department on multiple occasions, Ms. Gundry said as she scrolled through four months’ worth of messages on WhatsApp.

She initially contacted the department when a pipe on government’s side of the water metre burst on Aug. 21, flooding Conch’s storeroom with potable water, she said.

According to the head housekeeper, the department fixed the burst pipe efficiently, but she also took the opportunity to ask about the sewage overflow.

“That was at the same time that we had blocked facilities,” Ms. Gundry said. “So I was like, ‘Oh, can you guys also look at this?’”

Ms. Gundry said the department initially seemed ready and willing to help remedy the issue.

As time went on, however, its responses became less frequent, she said.

“I messaged them again on the 10th of October with pictures of the road, of the drain bubbling, and videos. They didn’t reply. They read it and didn’t reply,” Ms. Gundry said. “This [message] was on Wednesday: I sent them a message, and I got the automatic response, and they didn’t reply. And then yesterday, I sent them the video. They didn’t reply.”